By Juan Montoya
Everyone is familiar with the braggadocio associated with the Texas Rangers.
They like to repeat the “One riot, one Ranger” myth to show their toughness. But not everyone is familiar with their real performance under fire.
An enlightening example of their claim to fame is their role in the confrontation with Juan Cortina, the much-maligned “Red Rogue of the Rio Grande” who made war against the crooked settlers and their cohorts who dispossessed many Mexican Americans of their land.An impartial picture of the real nature of their “courage” is given in Major Peter Heintzelman's “Fifty Miles and a Fight,” thediary/book by the U.S. Army commander sent to stop Cortina after he took over Brownsville and its citizens called on the government for help.
Below are excerpts from Heintzelman’s diary as he confronted Cortinas and his followers and examples of the Rangers’ performance under fire.
“Some 100 Rangers started out for Cortina's camp,” he wrote Dec. 11, 1859. “They went out until they met the pickets and then after being fired upon, turned and came home. It is reported that one man had his gun shout out of his hand and then with a bullet through his hat.”
“I cannot get the Rangers to do anything effective in the way of scouting,” Heintzelman wrote Dec. 13, 1859, in page 138 of his book.
Then, several days later, in hot pursuit of Cortina on Dec. 16, he wrote “I halted and went near as proper with a small party and then tried to have the ground reconnoitered. With much delay I got a small party of Rangers, but they did not wish to move until daylight. The Rangers were not quite confident and held back, until I rode ahead and being joined by several officers we rode into the works and found them abandoned.”
In that same day, Heintzelman wrote, “We passed on some two miles or more. I all the time tried to keep the Rangers in advance and on the flanking, but with poor success.”
On page 139, the major again comments on the brave Texans, “We entered a dense chaparral of ebony in what is called ‘El Ebonal.’ Here I dismounted most of the Rangers with orders to flank through the bushes. With the guns and wagons we passed slowly up the road. We soon left the Rangers behind.”That same sense of self-preservation is evident again on page 140 of the book where the major said, “A few of the enemy fled to the Rio Grande and crossed. The balance with their gun went up the road. Here the Rangers had an admirable opportunity for capturing the gun, but within 40 yards stopped and dismounted. The guns with the two horses and mules soon ran off.”
On page 141, Heintzelman again reported, “I am mystified at the little we have done with near 300 men. It’s very mystifying to us, but no doubt it has had a depressing effect on the enemy. We would undoubtedly have done better without the Rangers.”
Again and again the professional soldier complains about the unscrupulousness and vindictiveness of the brutal Rangers. In page 143, he writes “On Cortina's rancho there was a heavy fence that made an excellent cover for the enemy. I had that burned down but strictly forbade burning anything without my express order. This is setting a very bad example to Cortina and the Rangers were burning all – friends and foes.”
Of particular note, Heintzelman singles out Ranger William Tobin as one of the least effective and most brutal members of the Rangers. He said, “Capt. Tobin got in from Point Isabel this afternoon. Some of his men or stragglers hung a poor Mexican man. Tobin says he knew nothing about it and that it was done without his orders or knowledge. It will have a very bad effect.”
Tobin was in direct competition with John “Rip” Ford for command of the divided Rangers. Heintzelman refers to this by saying; “The Rangers are holding an election today for major. William Tobin says if he is not elected, he will resign. If he doesn't keep better order and do something I will write to the Governor and have the Rangers recalled. They are doing no service and bring only disservice to the country.”
9 comments:
My father in law knew many horrible stories about "los rinches" as he called them. The stories are NOT pretty. He is my hero because he never let them break his spirit.
When trying to understand the history of the period, always understand that relationship between the Ranger and the US military was a mongoose and cobra sort of thing. Neither had any use for the other and neither wrote anything positive about the other.
But don't let that stand in the way of giving the Rinches a good bashing for La Raza. Flail away!Truth be damned, politics is king!
"...trying to understand the history of the period,..."
Que chingen su madre los pinche rinches! And anybody who denies they were a bunch of paid thugs.
For 90 years, most Mexican Americans in South Texas have known the truth behind the myth — that during a reign of terror in 1915, Texas Rangers randomly lynched, shot and killed Tejanos, whose farms, ranches and land were coveted by Anglo land speculators.
Kirby Warnock, an Anglo baby boomer and Dallas filmmaker who grew up in Texas watching "The Lone Ranger," also grew up on alternative stories about the Rangers from his grandfather, Roland Warnock, a cowboy who worked on Guadalupe Ranch near Edinburg in the mid-1900s.
On Sept. 30, 1915, Roland Warnok witnessed the murder of two unarmed Tejanos — 68-year-old Jesus Bazan and his son-in-law Antonio Longoria — by Rangers in a Model T Ford. Bazan and Longoria were shot in the back, off their horses, as the Rangers passed by. Warnock found their bodies two days later and buried them where they remain today, on a lonely stretch of road 18 miles north of Edinburg.
Kirby Warnock told his grandfather's story — and the larger untold story of South Texas — in a documentary called "Border Bandits," which returns Jan. 16 at 7 p.m. to the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Westlakes Shopping Center on Southwest Loop 410. The film was here in November, sold out two theaters at the Alamo Draft-house and is back for an encore. For more information, visit www.drafthouse.com .
Montoya, check out "el collar de fuego" by valerio evangelisti. the first part of the book deals with la guerra cortinista and gives a nice anecdotal account of the happenings in old brownsville and her older sister across the river that incorporates the ethnic abuses, the incompetence and brutality of the rangers, and the domination of the land robbers, excuse me, barons like king, kenedy, and yturria.
Rip Ford was a coward and murderer. Even his descendants are ashamed of him.
J.S. Fords descendants are too busy kissing brown ass to make a peso to take a stand on the issue. They should check Rip's grave every now and then to make certain he is still there and can do them no harm. It is he that would be ashamed of them.
Re Cortina: One's man's champion of justics is another man's bandit, thief and murdered. It all depends on whoes ancestor took the slight or bullet. So it goes down here on the Border.
Probably time all this crap was put to bed.
They may have been pendejos, but they won.
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